itus without realizing that it was
anything peculiar. He felt afterwards as if his school-days had been
merely a waste of time. At the age of eighteen he went to Athens, the
centre of the philosophic world, but he only went, as Athenian citizens
were in duty bound, to perform his year of military service as
_ephebus_. Study was to come later. The next year, however, 322,
Perdiccas of Thrace made an attack on Samos and drove out the Athenian
colonists. Neocles had by then lived on his bit of land for thirty
years, and was old to begin life again. The ruined family took refuge in
Colophon, and there Epicurus joined them. They were now too poor for the
boy to go abroad to study philosophy. He could only make the best of a
hard time and puzzle alone over the problems of life.

Recent years have taught us that there are few forms of misery harder
than that endured by a family of refugees, and it is not likely to have
been easier in ancient conditions. Epicurus built up his philosophy, it
would seem, while helping his parents and brothers through this bad
time. The problem was how to make the life of their little colony
tolerable, and he somehow solved it. It was not the kind of problem
which Stoicism and the great religions specially set themselves; it was
at once too unpretending and too practical. One can easily imagine the
condition for which he had to prescribe. For one thing, the unfortunate
refugees all about him would torment themselves with unnecessary
terrors. The Thracians were pursuing them. The Gods hated them; they
must obviously have committed some offence or impiety. (It is always
easy for disheartened men to discover in themselves some sin that
deserves punishment.) It would surely be better to die at once; except
that, with that sin upon them, they would only suffer more dreadfully
beyond the grave! In their distress they jarred, doubtless, on one
another's nerves; and mutual bitterness doubled their miseries.

Epicurus is said to have had poor health, and the situation was one
where even the best health would be sorely tried. But he had superhuman
courage, and--what does not always go with such courage--a very
affectionate and gentle nature. In later life all his three brothers
were his devoted disciples--a testimonial accorded to few prophets or
founders of religions. And he is the first man in the record of European
history whose mother was an important element in his life. Some of his
letters to her hav